The Challenge
Located in West Texas, Odessa, TX is a rapidly growing community, despite being 4 hours from major metropolitan areas. Its population of approximately 130,000 is served by the Odessa Police Department (ODP), which responds to approximately 270,000 calls for service annually.
To respond to those calls, the PD is authorized for 240 sworn officers and employes 25 emergency telecommunicators. However, like many law enforcement agencies around the country, OPD faces challenges with recruiting and retention. Despite this, the agency provides a wide range of services to its community and to fellow agencies. In addition to hosting an academy for their own officers, OPD’s academy is also approved by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) and is a regional ALERRT training provider. As such, the department hosts training for other agencies in addition to their own officers and on average, the agency provides training to 1,000+ students each month.
“We’re constantly training. There’s not a whole lot of places to train in West Texas so we’re the training hub for a lot of the agencies in this area,” said an Administrative Captain with OPD.
OPD is also currently in the process of being accredited by the Texas Police Chiefs Association Accreditation Program, which inspired a revamp of the agency’s policy manual.
All combined, the department’s training and policy logistics management is complex and the processes in place before implementing Frontline’s software solutions, such as paper, training binders, thumb drives, and other third-party software solutions were no longer meeting their needs.
In particular, the policy software OPD previously used did not provide the value they expected.
“It lacked a lot of features for the price we were paying for it,” the Administrative Captain said.
The Choice
According to the Administrative Captain, a major motivator for implementing new software to manage their training and policy management processes was the Police Chief’s desire to modernize the department.
“One of the things that our Chief has been focused on is implementing new technology and bringing us forward into the 21st century,” he said.
When considering their options, the agency came across Frontline’s FTO Tracker and Policy Tracker.
According to the Administrative Captain, one of the department’s field training officers first discovered FTO Tracker at a conference and was immediately impressed with how easy it was to use.
“He said it was so easy to use this as an FTO,” the Administrative Captain said. “And I hate computers, but FTO Tracker really is easy to use.”
The ability to implement solutions for both training and policy management through one vendor was also a major benefit for the department.
The Change
By partnering with Frontline, the Odessa Police Department has:
· Supported ongoing work to achieve accreditation and managing a major overhaul of the agency’s policy manual.
· Improved policy management processes for their 200+ policies, easily delivering each updated policy, ensuring officer acknowledgement, and utilizing search functionality to easily find exactly what admins are looking for.
· Replaced paper documentation and course training binders with a digital training repository.
· Tracked all training—academy, in-service, online and in-person—in one place.
· Streamlined reporting training hours to TCOLE for both the sworn officers, as well as the agency’s emergency telecommunicators.
· Ensured compliance with Texas records retention requirements related to training documentation.
· Provided officers with the ability to submit their own training requests and registration for training.
· Broadened access to training materials, ensuring officers who are unable to attend training can still access training files through their Frontline login.
· Simplified course registration processes and keeping track of filled or open seats for upcoming training events.
Following the police department’s successful implementation of Training Tracker, the agency also incorporated their emergency telecommunication staff into the system as well.
“They’re also required to report training hours to TCOLE, so I brought them on last year,” he said. “I can just pull it up [on my computer] instead of making [the ECC Director] come all the way across town from the dispatch center and drop off a physical course folder. They’ve enjoyed it a lot as well.”
In addition to all the ways Frontline has improved the agency’s training processes, Policy Tracker has also dramatically enhanced policy management.
“The biggest thing for us is that it’s really easy to use and navigate,” the Administrative Captain said. “Being able to search is a great feature, especially for Policy Tracker.”
Like the products themselves, implementation was also easy to manage.
“A lot of it was really simple, especially being able to import employee rosters,” he said. “Once you did that across all for the platforms, everything else kind of just built itself.”
Overall, OPD has simplified their workflows, improved visibility, and supported their long-term goals by partnering with Frontline for training, FTO, and police management.
“We’ve been very pleased with the Frontline products we have,” the Administrative Captain said. “I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Frontline.”
Customer Profile
· Training Tracker, Policy Tracker, FTO Tracker 2023
· Authorized for ~240 Sworn Officers
· 51.36 mi² area
· ~130,000 population
“We’ve been very pleased with the Frontline products we have. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Frontline.”
Administrative Captain, Odessa Police Department